The limbs were usually defended at this time, by being encased in boiled leather, on which knee-plates of iron, and guards for the shin-bones, were fixed; these, with a round or triangular shield, painted with the armorial bearings of the wearer, formed the defensive armour of the period. Wallace’s favourite weapon appears to have been a long and ponderous two-handed sword, which his prodigious strength enabled him to wield with the greatest ease.[72] The mace and spear were also at times used by him; and for close rencounters in castles, peels, and other confined situations, he was furnished with a dagger for each hand, of a particular kind, having guards, which extended above the wrist, between which the hand passed; and grasping a transverse bar about an inch from the spring of the dagger, the weapon projected from the centre of the first, like the horn of an unicorn. This sort of dagger was often attached, by a kind of hinge, to the arm-plate, and could be folded back under the arm between the wrist and the elbow when not in use, and secured and concealed in that position by the cloth gloves, which our hero appears to have worn over his “glowis of plate.”[73] Having said thus much of the dress and equipment of Wallace, the following anecdote respecting his strength and personal appearance, may not be unacceptable to the reader; it is translated from Hector Boëce by the learned editor of Morrison’s edition of Blind Harry, who thus introduces it. “Though this author (Boëce) in general is not much to be credited, yet it would be hard not to believe him in an instance which happened near his own time, and in which, if he had spoken falsely, he could immediately have been detected. The anecdote in another respect is curious, as it affords an example of longevity, not unsimilar to that of the Irish Countess of Desmond, who attained a still more advanced age. “The date is the year 1430. At that time, James I. was in Perth; and perhaps having heard _Henry the Minstrel_[74] recite some of Wallace’s exploits, found his curiosity excited to visit a noble lady of great age, who was able to inform him of many ancient matters. She lived in the castle of Kinnoul, on the opposite side of the river, and was probably a widow of one of the Lords of Erskine, a branch of whose family continued to be denominated from the barony of Kinnoul, till about the year 1440. It was Boëce’s manner to relate an event as circumstancially as if he had been one of the parties, and engaged in it; I shall therefore give the anecdote in his own manner, by translating his words: